The Canon · No. 105
Scientology
Church of Scientology
1954 CE – present · New Religious Movement · Living · US, UK, Australia, South Africa, Europe
VIII. POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY — 1945 – PRESENT
How many
The church has claimed millions; independent census data suggests a global total in the tens of thousands and falling. The 2011 England and Wales census recorded 2,418.
Who began it
L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986), a pulp science fiction writer, who published Dianetics in 1950 as a self-help psychology and reorganised it as a religion in 1954.
What it is for
To clear the individual of accumulated mental trauma and restore the person to their native spiritual state and abilities.
What it worships
None. Scientology has no god to worship and no prayer. The Eighth Dynamic is called infinity or the Supreme Being and is left entirely undefined.
What it holds
A person is a thetan, an immortal spiritual being, who has lived countless lifetimes and has forgotten it. The reactive mind stores engrams, recordings of painful or unconscious moments, which cause irrational behaviour and illness. Removing them produces the state of Clear. Beyond Clear are the OT levels, Operating Thetan, sold confidentially at very high cost. OT III contains the Xenu material — an account of a galactic ruler who 75 million years ago transported beings to Earth and destroyed them with hydrogen bombs in volcanoes, whose disembodied spirits (body thetans) now cling to people. The church has fought extensively in court to keep this material confidential; it has been public since the 1980s and was broadcast on South Park in 2005.
What it does
Auditing — one-to-one sessions using an E-meter, a galvanometer, in which the auditor asks scripted questions to locate and discharge engrams. Auditing is paid for by the hour, and progress up the levels, the Bridge to Total Freedom, costs an amount widely estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Training courses. The Sea Org, the clergy, whose members sign a billion-year contract. Disconnection — members are required to cut contact with anyone declared a Suppressive Person, including family, which is the single most damaging practice for members' lives and the one most consistently reported by those who leave.
After death
The thetan does not die. At the body's death it goes to an implant station, is stripped of memory, and picks up a new body — a straightforward reincarnation model without karma, judgment, heaven or hell. Members write their next-life instructions in advance. There is no salvation and no damnation, only greater or lesser ability.
Its texts
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950). Hubbard's lectures and bulletins, treated as unalterable scripture. The upper-level materials, held confidential.
Its branches
The Church of Scientology International and its Sea Org; the Free Zone and Ron's Org, independent practitioners who use the techniques outside the official church.
Of note
The definitional argument matters here. Whether Scientology is a religion is a live legal question in several countries, and it turns on whether the state looks at the content of belief or at the structure and function of the organisation.
Its timeline
- 1950 CE Dianetics published; a brief national craze. The American Psychological Association warns against it the same year.
- 1953–54 CE Incorporated as a church in New Jersey and then California. Hubbard had written to a correspondent in 1953 that the religion angle carried advantages, a letter the church disputes the meaning of.
- 1963, 1977 CE FDA raid on the Washington church; then the FBI raids Scientology offices, uncovering Operation Snow White — an infiltration of federal agencies described as the largest such operation against the US government by a private body. Eleven senior Scientologists, including Hubbard's wife, are convicted.
- 1967–75 CE Hubbard at sea with the Sea Org after losing tax-exempt status.
- 1986 CE Hubbard dies in seclusion; David Miscavige takes control.
- <strong>1993 CE</strong> The IRS grants tax exemption after a campaign that included thousands of lawsuits against the agency and its staff — an outcome that remains contested.
- 1995 CE Lisa McPherson dies after seventeen days in church care in Florida; the resulting case and campaign generate sustained public scrutiny.
- 1990s–present Recognised as a religion in some jurisdictions and refused in others; Germany and France have treated it as a commercial enterprise, and a French branch was convicted of organised fraud in 2009.
- 2013–2016 CE Lawrence Wright's Going Clear, the HBO documentary, and Leah Remini's series bring large-scale defector testimony to a mass audience.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.